My left ear has been closed for 2 years now and it makes me feel like everything is off and I’m anxious sometimes. I feel like my mental health has plummeted since my ear and jaw problems. Ya know when one ear is closed you feel off :/ Yaa lmk so tired of this
Has anyone who has had Obstructive Eustachian Tube Dysfunction and tinnitus and had the Eustachian tuboplasty (balloon dilation) procedure to unblock their Eustachian tubes have their tinnitus worsen after the procedure or improve?
I am considering Eustachian tuboplasty to unblock my Eustachian tubes as I have ear pressure and have not been able to perform the valsalva manoeuvre to unblock my ears as it results in making the pressure in my ears worse but am concerned if this will worsen my tinnitus. I plan to speak to my ENT prior to getting the procedure done but feel like he may not know. The other option would be to have ear tubes.
is it normal to feel like absolute shit? ive had etd for 9 months and i just got ear tubes along with another balloon dilation and today, my right ear feels like theres a pool in it and the fullness is worse than ever, what do i do?
What could this b i have had 23 days sore throat and ear pain , my ears itch but it comes and goes thru the day
Ear tubes
My little boy is 22 months old. Has had at least 10+ ear infections since he has been born. Got ear tubes with ENT 3 weeks ago. Yesterday we noticed he was getting a runny nose (usually means a nasty ear infection is to follow). Sure enough my husband texts me today saying our toddler has a low grade fever. But no drainage from either ears that we can see??
I got home from work (I’m a nurse, didn’t get home until 8pm) took my toddlers temp and it’s 102. Hes not wanting to eat or take a sippy cup.
I’m so beside myself. I thought tubes were supposed to reduce ear infections?? I don’t even know what to do. I gave him Tylenol and used the antibiotic ear drops the ENT gave us after surgery.
My LO has developed a pretty severe speech delay due to the ear infections. He really only says about 3 words. And that’s only sometimes.
I can’t get into see the ENT for 3 days. Should I go ahead and take my LO to see the regular pediatrician?
i flew last weekend and stayed in london a week and have found that both of my ears are blocked (once going to the doctor i found both have fluid in them) and can’t hear well.. i’ve tried steroid nose spray, steroid spray, nasal rinse, and even bought the device that shoots air in your nose to open your ear tubes and NOTHING helps
now i’ve flown before with a minor cold and had EXCRUCIATING pain when descending and i’m terrified that my eardrums would actually rupture this time since the dr said my ears had no inflammation i simply had fluid in my ears and it would take time to go away with nose steroids, decongestants etc
anyways i got to the airport had a mental breakdown and decided to miss my flight and now im taking 3 trains to get to another country (over a day traveling) am i being dramatic asf???
**Hi everyone, I’m dealing with an incredibly frustrating diagnostic gray area and I'm hoping someone here has experienced something similar. My doctors are stuck on one diagnosis, but my symptoms tell a different story.**
**Here is what is happening with my right ear:**
**The Middle Ear / ETD Symptoms:**
**Constant popping and crackling whenever I yawn or swallow.**
**A stubborn, ongoing feeling of "trapped air."**
**My tympanometry test confirmed severe negative pressure (Type C curve with -208 pressure).**
**Because of this, my ENTs insist it is strictly Eustachian Tube Dysfunction.**
**Out of nowhere, my hearing will suddenly drop by almost 90%.**
**This extreme drop lasts for about 1 to 2 days.**
**After the acute drop, my hearing stays at a 30% to 50% loss for months at a time.**
**Eventually, my hearing returns to completely normal for a while (I once had a 10-month stretch of normal hearing), only for the cycle to repeat.**
**I do not have any vertigo.**
**Since none of the maximum medical therapies are working, it feels like I am dealing with a "double hit" of severe ETD combined with Cochlear Hydrops, but my doctors won't look past the ETD.**
**Has anyone dealt with this specific overlap of ETD symptoms and extreme, fluctuating hearing drops? If pills and sprays completely failed for you, what next-level procedures (grommets/tubes, balloon dilation, inner-ear steroid injections) finally broke the cycle and gave you relief?**
**Any advice is hugely appreciated!**
Basic information
Current problem
My 18-year-old son has a very unusual longstanding ear history. A T-tube placed in his left ear as a young child eventually migrated into the middle ear and has remained there for many years. His eardrum is now intact, and the green tube is visible through the eardrum on microscopic examination.
He continues to have recurrent, very painful left acute middle-ear infections (AOM**)**, particularly when he gets sick with a respiratory illness. These are not swimmer's ear and are not specifically associated with swimming. When he is not infected, he feels that his hearing is normal.
We recently saw an otologist/neurotologist who specializes in ear surgery. He examined him under the microscope and diagnosed:
"18 yo M with recurring left AOM in setting of retained tube."
He believes the retained tube is very likely contributing to the recurrent infections and recommends a left tympanoplasty to remove the retained tube from the middle ear. He considers the procedure routine/very low risk and does not feel a CT is necessary.
His June 2026 audiogram was excellent:
The microscopic exam showed an intact left tympanic membrane with the green tube visible within the middle ear. Facial nerve function and the remainder of the neurologic exam were normal.
The surgeon discussed the usual risks of tympanoplasty, including bleeding, infection, hearing loss, dizziness, altered taste, facial weakness, and possible additional surgery. He also explained that he uses intraoperative monitoring.
His postoperative instructions indicate approximately one week off work/school and no flying for two weeks.
My question is timing.
He is starting college this month. We are considering scheduling surgery after his fall-semester finals in December (2nd week), when he can recover at home, versus waiting until next summer.
My concern with December is that he tends to get respiratory/ear infections during the winter (Jan/Feb). I don't know whether having the surgery during cold/flu season creates additional concerns, or whether there could be lingering ear symptoms that would interfere with returning to college first week in January (college is 4.5 hours from home).
For physicians who perform tympanoplasty/middle-ear surgery:
If this were your patient and the surgery is elective with his current infections manageable, would December after finals be a reasonable time, or would you favor waiting until summer?
I'm also interested in firsthand recovery experience:
I'm not asking whether he should have surgery (though please do comment)—the otologist has already recommended it. I'm mainly trying to decide when to schedule it.
It could also be caused by bad posture, jaw misalignment, TMJ issues, or jaw and facial muscle misuse and tightness.
This is my story with ETD: one day while in the car with friends going hiking, I put on my AirPods to listen to some music but my right AirPod was sending weak bass that wasnt as rumbly or punchy as the left one. After an hour of trying to deal with it, the inequality became unbearable, so I borrowed a friends pair of AirPods, only to notice the exact same thing. After trying three different pairs of earbuds, I realised that the ear itself is the problem. Research and symptom-checking, lead to the conclusion that ive got ETD .
For seven months, I visited three different ENTs two or three times each. All of them prescribed different nasal sprays, pills, and cleansers, giving out exercises and instructions to follow. I was exhausted by the ETD so I followed every instruction obediently.
When I tell you nothing worked, I truly mean it. Things even got worse, some days I would wake up with headaches and dizziness that lasted until the time I went to sleep at night. Painkillers did nothing. Dizziness, disorientation, constant brain fog, and daily panic attacks became a problem for five months straight. Even listening to music pissed me off or stressed me out because of the constant focus on that feeling of inequality between the ears. Having those symptoms every single day for all those months caused an unbelievable amount of stress.
The last time I went to an ENT was when the doctor said that since all exercises and steroid nasal sprays failed, this might just be a chronic problem where the only aim should be making it a bit better and not to fix it completely, He told me to try to "get it out of my head," and Thus learning how to live with it. Getting it out of my head makes sense, but learning to live with it? No chance. If thats how things were going to be for the rest of my life It didnt even feel worth it to live.
I completely abandoned Nasal sprays out of frustration and mental exhaustion while trying to get used to it. My Mental health crashed, with my mind being fixated on the pressure inequality from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep for two months straight. I ended up exhausted and depressed. Eventually, working with a psychologist helped me avoid constantly thinking about it, but the feeling of helplessness still drained me.
One day, I was massaging my face and temples to relieve my headache. Then I moved down to massage the jaw for a few minutes and felt something physically shift, suddenly a sense of balance returned, disorientation had faded, and moreover, the right ear's bass response had slightly but noticeably improved, for a few minutes i finally had some relief. After a little bit of research I found out that TMJ problems can directly cause ETD like symptoms, which lead to changing daily habits and relaxing my neck and jaw muscles to try and relieve the pressure. A week later, a dentist confirmed that my right TMJ is completely fucked up and recommended i get an appointment with a gnathologist.
Turns out chronic stress caused jaw and neck muscles to tense up and spasm. All that stress about ETD was actually making the ETD worse by triggering constant jaw clenching, night teeth grinding, bad posture, and mouth breathing that threw the right TMJ out of alignment. I think I was the first person in history to get happy after being diagnosed with a dysfunction. And you cant blame me, all those ENTs made it seem like I was broken and couldn't be fixed.
Im currently researching different treatment methods with different doctors like chiropractors, acupuncturists, and gnathologists.
So if nasal sprays haven't done anything and symptoms apart from ear fullness include immense headaches, clicking or grinding sensations on the jaw joint when chewing or yawning, difficulty opening the mouth wide, jaw locking, or soreness and tightness around the face that improves when lying down or changing posture, maybe ETD isn't caused by inflammation, congestion, or allergies. Have a look at the jaw instead. Also, wisdom teeth popping out around the same time ETD started is another massive tell. If you are sure that your jaw is fine, have a look at other causes like stress or eye strain or maybe even weight loss. I don't know if the ENTs I visited didn't know that ETD could be caused by something else but not knowing this sooner wasted a year of my life. So don't give up Ive heard stories of people being cured after years of dealing with ETD.
Also keep in mind that I have other co-occurring conditions like strabismus so my symptoms like disorientation might have been much more severe and intense, but looking into TMJ issues is still 100% worth it even if your symptoms don't relate perfectly with mine.